New York’s links to the epic Apollo story

The last part of my Apollo extravaganza was a bit special. The night before I embarked on my Long Island expedition to find the birthplace of the legendary Lunar Module, I had sat in the front row of the little presentation…er, theatre of the Soho Apple store and listened to Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin give a talk as part of the publicity behind the release of a new book, No Dream Is Too High. We arrived two hours early and it was almost half full already. Thankfully, there were still seats in the front row, less than 10 feet away from Mr Aldrin would be sitting. A quick check on the ‘events’ section of his website revealed that he would only be giving a talk and that there would be no copies of his book available to buy and he wouldn’t be autographing anything. However, the following day, in Huntington, Long Island, he would be doing a book signing. Thus this whole adventure began.

There was an awful lot to get through, as you can imagine, in just 60 minutes, but with the assistance of his manager/personal assistant/carer, or just plain “mission controller” as she said she likes to call herself, he shared a few stories of growing up in New Jersey and of that historic day in July 1969. As the talk ended and the standing ovation died down, the front area was swamped by people who had all manner of items they were hoping to have signed, but as stated, Mr Aldrin wasn’t having any of it, instead throwing a smile and a wave to the crowd and disappearing with his entourage back stage.

The signing was being held at a store in a beautiful part of New York called Huntington, on the north shore of Long Island in northwestern Suffolk County. The store, called Book Revue, apparently has a reputation for organising popular book signings and thus attracts many big-names and equally big crowds. The impressive list includes authors like Ray Bradbury and Michael Crichton, US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and Mercury 7 astronauts Alan Shepard and Scott Carpenter. I was told this wasn’t even the first time Mr Aldrin had done a signing here.

There was a very specific set of guidelines on Mr Aldrin’s site that explained with little ambiguity exactly how the evening was going to go down…

• Buzz will only autograph the new book No Dream is Too High
• He will NOT sign any memorabilia, photos, space related items, other books authored or not authored by him
• He will not personalize and will sign his name only
• We allow photos as he’s signing, but we won’t pose for photos or allow anyone behind the table to take a photo
• Each venue will decide if there is a limit to how many books you may purchase
• Buzz will continue to sign until the last person in line having purchased a book is taken care of
• Once all books are sold we will consider the signing over

We arrived in Huntington at about 4:30pm, the signing was scheduled to begin at 7pm. Although the official Buzz Aldrin website said there would also be a talk and Q&A session, the nice man in the book store said that was extremely unlikely. Upon purchasing the book, we were given a ticket with a letter on, “D”, based on how many copies of the book had been sold before ours. Each letter assignment equated to between 50 and 100 people since you could purchase two books on any one letter ticket. So there were between 150 and 300 people in front of us before they’d call for D ticket holders to start queuing.

Having been to book signings before, albeit not on this scale, I had a slight idea of what to expect. I knew I’d only have seconds with this living legend. How on earth he manages to maintain these kinds of grueling schedules, like promotional tours, books signings and public appearances, I honestly don’t know. All I really wanted to do, was shake his hand, but I suspected that wouldn’t be an option, given he was also signing hundreds and hundreds of books.

Following a positively scrummy burger at the delightful Mundays diner, we headed back to the bookshop. By now it was nearly 7pm and the place was heaving. People filled the bookshop, knocking over books, accidentally kicking them under tables. Everybody was shuffling their feet, sharing their opinion on how the queuing system should be better organized, there was even one guy who came dressed as an astronaut. His outfit was actually pretty cool.

For hours we stood, slowly stumbling forward, sweating in the heat, until our letter was called and then the stampede began. The poor woman from the bookstore who was corralling the crowd tried to keep control, but we could all see her slowly unraveling. We even witnessed a ridiculously heated discussion on how to best proceed with manned space flight break out in the isles between Social Science and Personal Growth.

Since this lovely, family-owned bookstore had so many big book signings, it must be safe to assume then that everyone in Huntington has a really impressive library. The nice bookstore girl, who was slowly losing her sanity explained it was like going to a music concert, the gathered horde were mostly local, but some would make the effort to travel here from further afield. People of all ages were here, parents with their unruly offspring, war vets of all ages, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, even teenagers – an age-group I’d genuinely thought wouldn’t appreciate the enormity of this event. Perhaps I’m wrong, or perhaps their copy will just end up eBay.

Then my turn came. And as the production line inched forward, my book was suddenly snatched from me and opened to the correct page, at which point I asked if he could actually sign the first page since there was much more clean, white space. “He’s only signing this page,” came the short, sharp reply as it was placed into position. Then I found myself in front of Mr Aldrin…and wondered what to say.

I knew I only had seconds, so I simply said, “We thoroughly enjoyed your talk at the Apple store last night…” at which point Ms Rasch-Korp remarked, “I thought I recognised you…” Then the National Geographic lady sitting at the other end of the the table remarked on how much she liked my (National Geographic) bag. The clock was ticking and time was running out. A little confused and not wanting to be rude to anyone, I smiled at her and turned back to Mr Aldrin who, through all the confusion had extended his hand, which I held gently and shook a little. “It’s an honour to meet you sir,” I said, adding, “Thank you ever so much,” as he signed my book.

All too quickly it was over, but I glanced back at the people behind me, now having their books all signed, and…he wasn’t shaking everyone’s hand. I thought back to the London Star Trek convention in 2012 where I asked to shake the hand of Sir Patrick Stewart and he refused, saying he’d had too many “bone-crushers” that day, this man, Buzz Aldrin was 86 years old and this evening he was repetitively signing a total of 1,800 copies of his new book, as he later tweeted. What a guy.

A cursory glance at his website shows that he was off to Connecticut the next day, Philadelphia after that and Los Angeles the day after that, Followed by Florida, Washington DC and Texas. What a guy.

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